Ongoing

Ongoing in my struggle with my new Sweet Sixteen sewing machine.  Stitching with regular thread is a dream, fast, smooth, easy to manipulate free motion.  My issue is with heavier thread.  I wanted to stitch the piece below with something heavy and I picked up some Gutermann heavy duty polyester thread at my local Joann's because the color was what I wanted.   I mentioned in an earlier blog that I was having trouble getting the tension to cooperate, and my thread was either breaking, or looping, no in between.  It ended up back in the shop when I threw the timing off.  I bought an upper thread tension guide from Superior,  I bought a horizontal thread holder for the machine, I even bought an extra bobbin case thinking I would need to mess with that.  When I got the machine back I used the tension guide and the horizontal thread holder and achieved nirvana in stitching.  For a while.  Then I noticed the thread would periodically come loose from the tension discs and I'd be looping again.  Since I was almost done stitching this, I kept rethreading and moving on.  Then I heard the ominous clunking noise that told me I had thread stuck in the bobbin case again,  and sure enough I threw the timing out again.  I called the company, they suggested moving one of the thread guides over so the thread goes through the discs vertically instead of at an angle.  Back to the sewing shop we went, and I have ended up finishing the stitching on this by hand.

I am frustrated, because I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or something's wrong with the machine.  When I pick it up this time, I'm going to sit in the repair shop and stitch with the heavy duty thread and see if they can figure it out.  

With better news, my mom celebrated her 89th birthday recently, and her she is with her great granddaughter Riley, who is 10 months.